Hero or devil's spawn, I don't give a shit. It's massive expansion of surveillance

[ljm2002]

111. "I'm not a criminal"...

...until the government decides you are one.

There are plenty of perfectly legal groups that one can associate with and still end up on a watch list. At present, OWS is the canonical example of this. Apart from their occupations, they have held demonstrations and the like that were 100% peaceful and 100% legal and constitutional per the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

And yet if you are known to be associated with them you are considered potentially subversive or worse. So maybe you're not a fan of OWS, still, if you have any interest in actively engaging in our political discourse, you better watch your back. Some things are acceptable to say and some things aren't -- and it is not all about whether you threaten violence. Anything, anything that threatens the status quo is taken as a threat.

Finally, privacy vis a vis companies is different than privacy vis a vis the government. For one thing, any one business has access to their own data, not all data. Whereas the government is gaining more and more access to consolidated data. For another thing, a company can't send someone to your house to have you arrested. The government can.

I don't think you have thought this through.